KeyTech, the owners of BTC, CableVision and Logic Communications Ltd., have said that this year?s profits will be on a par with last year ? despite being hit by large bills from Hurricane Fabian.

The company, which trades on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, said that these costs for storm damage of about $2.5 million were offset by the sale of Bank of Bermuda shares which netted them $2.2 million.

Last year the company reported a fall in overall profits of 33 percent or nearly $5 million for the year, after what the chief executive officer described as a ?challenging? year.

During that year the company announced that for the year ended March 31 2003, its net income stood at $10.2 million, compared to a year earlier, when it was $15.1 million.

In a release from KeyTech yesterday, the company said the final year end financial results were not yet available.

?However preliminary indications are that net income will be similar to that of the previous year,? said chief executive officer Sheila Manderson in her letter to shareholders.

The company said that in February, KeyTech became a minority shareholder with a 40 percent stake in WestTel Ltd., a new telecommunications provider company in the Cayman Islands. WestTel is licensed in the Cayman Islands to provide local and long distance telephony, Internet and value added data services to both the corporate and residential markets.

KeyTech?s partner in this venture is West Star TV Ltd., a cable and television operator in Cayman.

?KeyTech has a five year contract to provide technical and advisory services to the business and views this as an excellent opportunity to leverage its expertise and its US Internet infrastructure,? said Ms Manderson.

She said that the board was pleased with the news that Bermuda Yellow Pages was awarded the prestigious Gold Award for its website ?bermudayp.com? by Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association (YPIMA) at their annual conference in San Diego in March.

?This award represents a significant accomplishment of the Bermuda Yellow Pages Team since YPIMA represents most major global telecommunications companies,? she said.

Ms Manderson went on to say that the international voice calling business in Curacao ? Genespidernet ? was not able to increase market share to a level sufficient to support profitability and in February operations were discontinued.

Last year?s annual report showed that Genespidernet lost a total of $2.0 million over two years in net loss and the company has written of a loan for $1.55 million and at the time they were looking to sell the business.

At the end of last year (2003) the company said that losses attributable to the minority interests in Genespidernet were nil for the six -month period and $31,044 for the prior six-month period.

Ms Manderson added that Mr. Edgar Dill had recently joined the senior management team of BTC as chief operating officer.

Mr. Dill is well qualified and has extensive experience in the telecommunications field, having served in various engineering and senior management positions with Cable & Wireless for over thirty years.

She also said that the board of directors of KeyTech declared a common share dividend of 15 cents per share for the fourth quarter ending March 31st, 2004.

And she added that Logic Communications opened its Customer Care Center/Retail facility on Burnaby Street on April 2.

?The store will provide convenient access for customers as well as many other value added benefits,? she said.